


Her Name was Daisy

by My_Write_Life



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Cheating, F/M, Getting Back Together, M/M, Screwing up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:15:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 14,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26737225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/My_Write_Life/pseuds/My_Write_Life
Summary: Stiles and Derek were high school sweethearts and lived in married bliss for five years before everything turned on its head. Cut to five years after that, in Seattle Stiles is thriving and happy until he gets a call from his former step brother back home.Stiles father has died and Stiles had to go back home to take care of the funeral and the house the last thing he expected was to see his ex husband at his father’s wake nor did he expect to unearth a deep and terrible family secret.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Original Female Character(s), Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Isaac Lahey/Heather, Jackson Whittemore/Danielle, Stiles Stilinski/Jordan Parrish, Vernon Boyd/Erica Reyes
Comments: 68
Kudos: 221





	1. Chapter 1

Do they think that he’s stupid? Do they talk about him when they’re shacked up in some sleazy motel just off the highway, tangled up in their scratchy little sheets. Stiles wonders if Derek even has a moment to think about him at all when he’s with her. Stiles doesn’t know if its better that he isn’t thinking about Stiles or worse that Stiles doesn’t exist to him when he’s with some random fragrance spritzer from the mall.

She was pretty and...and young. She looked like what Stiles might have looked like if he’d been twenty and a woman but Stiles isn’t twenty he’s twenty five and he’s a man with a beard, a degree and a full time job.

And a cheating husband.

”Jesus Christ.” He pushes back from his desk and tosses his glasses onto his laptop and rubs his tired eyes, it’s four thirty in the morning and Stiles is sitting in the office in the dark determined to make it known that Stiles was awake and waiting for him, exhausted of playing this game where he pretends to be the oblivious doting husband who just know.

There is nothing about this house that feels like home, not at all. It had been home since he’d gotten married and Stiles hadn’t really cared that Derek had surprised him with this mammoth of a Victorian on Lunar Street where all the big beautiful houses were, he hadn’t cared because he was too happy to finally be married with the one.

The one is such a crock of shit, really it is. Theres a frame laying flat front on the desk because Stiles had been nauseous looking at the wedding picture because those smiles are lies and the vows were all bullshit and Stiles loves Derek so much that his teeth ache and he wants to die. The thing is that Stiles doesn’t feel like Derek loves him less. They work hard and have only two full days together but every morning when they’re on the go to work or when they’re just climbing into bed after a long day and night they say I love you, they’ll make love if they aren’t too exhausted or maybe a little hand job and fall asleep. 

Was it because Stiles had taken on more to do at work, was that it? Was Derek working too hard and did he need some...something to loosen up? Did that woman matter to Derek did he love her? Did Derek love Stiles and that woman both and he just didn’t know who to choose or was he still with Stiles out of obligation because they’d been together for so long and married for five years?

The office is sat towards the front of the house in what was the parlor, stares through the semi sheer creme drapes as the low lights of Derek’s camaro pulls up and parks. He watches in the dark as Derek sneakily climbs out of his car and races on silent feet towards the front door. Stiles stands up and makes it for the stairs and leans against the banister as the front door unlocks and Derek steps right in.

”Stiles?” Derek looks confused. Scared.

Good.

Stiles doesn’t know what to say. He wonders if he should just play stupid, the way he’s done for months, or if he should say something. He clears his throat.

”If you wouldn’t mind,” He makes a dismissive hand at Derek and clears his throat. “Packing you things and getting out of my house I’d greatly appreciate it.”

”Stiles,”

”No,” Stiles shakes his head and shame bubbles up from his belly, months worth of humiliation and shame and bargaining and keeping secrets and smiling... “I don’t care where you go. Go to your mothers house or hers I don’t care. You just can’t be here.”

He rubs his tired eyes and walks up the stairs. 

“I’m not asking you to pack everything away I’m just asking you to give me some time.”

”Some time-Stiles, we need to talk about this.”

”I need time to get all of my things together. This is your house not mine.”

”Stiles.”

”Get out!”

Stiles watches as Derek walks out the door, briefcase swinging in his hand, he listens as the camaro starts up and peels out of the roundabout driveway. When his head hits the pillow its the best nights rest he’s had since he found out about Derek and that girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> People screw up all the time. Sometimes the right person comes at the wrong time. It’s no excuse but its something to think about the further this goes along. Really, this here is something to work on when I’m stumped on my other work. And yes, they are exactly who you think they are. I didn’t exactly hide who Stiles Seattle friends and coworkers were. I promise to be less blatant next time.


	2. Chapter 2

Stiles loves being a doctor even if Doctor Grey gives him the willies. That woman has been surrounded by more death that what should be humanly possible but her blue gray eyes are as kind as they are sharp and when he’d transferred in five years ago, heart broken and dead she’d taken one look at him and had treated him as hard as she could just to beat him back into shape. She’d done well, they hall had and Stiles had all but locked away the pain and betrayal of his failed marriage. 

“Getting home?” Nurse Potter ties up her curly red hair and winks over her glasses. “By the way, Delicious Daddy was just here looking for you.” 

“Gin, please don't.” He says sternly but theres a smile on his face and he gives her a wink in return. “But speaking of, how’s Annie?”

”Adorable, cherubic and looking better every day. You saw her chart, you know how she is.”

”Yeah,” He pulls on his peacoat over his scrubs and lets Nurse Potter fix his checkered scarf for him. “But reacting well to her medications is different that reacting well to the situation. Is she happy?”

”Splendidly.” Nurse Potter gives his scarf a little tug and Stiles worried frown eases into a soft smile. “Why do you think Delicious Daddy has been looking all over for you, hm? Now, get out of here. I don’t want to see you for a week.”

”What am I supposed to do with an entire week?”

”Sleep in, drink, call this man and have a good time,” Nurse Potter tucks a folded paper into the pocket of his peacoat. “Call him Jordan.” She says. “Delicious Daddy is an us thing.”

”Yeah yeah,” He grabs his duffle and walks backwards away from the nurses station. “You and Harry still on for drinks tomorrow night?”

”Granted the sitter doesn’t cancel this time.”

Stiles learned a long time ago that the elevators were just a recipe for drama so he takes the stairs down to the lobby, nodding at the receptionist and interns as he breezes out the double doors into the cold damp night. The chill feels good on his skin, the day or rather the night before and day since he’d gotten in had been good no fatalities but then, Stiles had been stuck in surgery for most of it.

He’s at his car when he feels it, the vibration coming from his pocket, he grabs his phone and yawns into his answer.

”Scott?”

’Stiles, something’s happened.’


	3. Chapter 3

When Stiles was a little boy, before his mother had her accident and died and when his dad had still been a deputy he had thought that he’d had the perfect life. The perfect mother who stayed home and baked cookies, a dad who was a police officer who always let Stiles turn on the siren and lights and of course, how could he forget, Zipper, their golden retriever. Zipper had been a perfect and sweet dog who slobbered all over Stiles face and would knock him over whenever he’d get home from school. They lived in a perfect two story house with a large garden in the front filled with roses with three hideous plastic flamingos.

When Stiles was thirteen his mother died everything changed, of course thinly would, just before his mother died his parents had been fighting quite a bit. The name Daisy came up quite a lot, his father sounded pleading and his mother had been angry and dismissive and Stiles had been nosy but not stupid enough to get too close to hear everything clearly. His father had been working later and later and Stiles mother had stopped baking cookies.

It was devastating when his mother died but it was also a bit of a relief, before had been constant screaming matches and then it had stopped. Everything became worse with the constant crying and the smell of whiskey fire that replaced the arguing. His dad became sheriff and eventually remarried when Stiles was in high school dating Derek and deliriously happy. If only he’d known.

When Stiles gets home, and he really doesn’t know how he was able to manage to drive after Scott’s phone call, he kicks the door to his apartment shut and falls face first onto his sofa. There were plates from breakfast still on the coffee table from the night before and a pile of laundry by the bedroom door. Stiles life was over for a third time, his mother dying the first, getting divorced second and now the third.

”How did dad die?” Stiles had asked Scott and Scott had taken a moment, shushed the baby and then told him about the aneurism. His father had just sat down to start his shift and then died.

”Jesus,” Stiles had let his forehead rest against his steering wheel and had silently cried. Jesus... “When,” He’s grumbled. “When’s the funeral?”

”Dude, thats up to you.”

”Oh right,” He says. “Our parents got divorced last year.”

”Yeah man.” 

On the way home Stiles called his boss who had been more than understanding. Take your time, she’d said and he’d decided to take her up on that. He called Gin next, canceled their drinks and told her about his dad. She gave her condolences and asked if he needed her in any way and while he’d really really was tempted Ginny and Harry had three kids, the youngest barely a year old and didn’t need the added stress of his shit.

Shit.

His dad was dead.

Later on he’s fantastically drunk and sad, laying in his scrubs on the floor with a half empty bottle and wondering why everything just had to suck. It seemed like whenever he’d thought he was happy something always happened to take the happy away. He was five years into Seattle and finally felt settled, was thinking about maybe asking Delicious Daddy on a date, he finally felt like he was reclaiming his life after the divorce even if he still sometimes reached towards the other side of the bed, always disappointed when he didn’t feel that familiar firm warmth of Derek’s-

He groaned.

No, none of that.

The next morning he’s pulled up from the carpet and thrust into a cold shower by Doctor Grey and Gin, who had his spare key and only when he’s somehow sober and dressed that he allows himself to have a nice long cry at his kitchen counter. Harry makes bacon and ushers the grease to fry up some eggs, Doctor Grey pours him black coffee and Gin lets him use her shoulder to cry on.

Its terrible.

”I booked you a ticket home,” Doctor Grey announces after packing his luggage. “They will be a rented Mercedes waiting for you there and if you need absolutely anything,”

”Give you a call?” He asks as she thrusts the luggage at him with a grin.

”God no, I’ve done my part.”

He grins, its hardly forced.

”What the hell am I supposed to do?”

”Call his insurance. They’ll tell you what to do.”

He wishes that he could take them all with him back to Beacon Hills, he hasn’t been back since filing for divorce and the thought of being back there gives him chills and makes him nauseated.

He wonders if Derek is still there in that big old Victoria on Lunar street, he wonders if Derek is still with her, if they’d gotten married as soon as the ink dried and if they had kids.

He shakes his head and puts on his shoes.

Theres no reason to think about Derek and the spritzer bimbo from the mall and even if he did marry the girl it wasn’t Stiles problem anymore.

”Shit.”

”You’re going to be fine.” Harry ruffles his hair. “And if you need us we can make the trip.”

”But the kids,”

”Can stay with the in-laws.” 


	4. Chapter 4

It looks the same. It even smells the same and the cold nipping at his fingertips makes Stiles shiver. On the plane ride over he’d sat with his head tipped against the glass remembering random things. He remembered his parents, his dog and then he remembered death. His mother’s funeral had been on a bright and beautiful Sunday afternoon in the springtime and all Stiles could think was that his father’s funeral would be dreary and cold as the dead.

There had been no one waiting for him at the airport, Scott had wanted to come but Stiles understood how hard his former step brother had it raising a baby all his own after his wife had passed in the birth. It made Stiles’ heart wrench, everyone was dying before they should. Pamela had been so sweet and kind and wonderful and glowing the bigger her belly became and then she was just gone, like smoke.

Just like his mother and his father and if he thought about it his own marriage. Because leaving Derek and their home was a loss that felt a whole lot like death. It had been cold too, in the eve of winter when he’d walked away and chose himself and hadn’t seen Derek since the day he’d asked him to leave. Stiles felt like such a coward when he’d asked Lydia to forward the papers to Derek, unable to do it himself and while they’d never been particularly close back then she’d nodded and done the deed. After that they’d become friends, kindred of the broken hearts club although the end of her marriage had been long ago and mostly healed.

He takes the scenic route towards town, driving through the long and seemingly desolate road with deep green and dark ash brown lined the sides of his vision the further he went and the road itself was not raved but flattened dirt and grass. He used to love this road like he used to love the town and he remembered laughter, old laughter and loving words and sounds and then he banishes the thought and concentrates on what he sees ahead. This is not a return to happiness this is a return to burry the dead. He can’t even remember the last time they’d spoken, Stiles and his father, and whether or not he’d said that he loved him. 

Of course he did love his father and of course his father knew but how long had it been since the words had been uttered and heard? Stiles and his father had once been so close that they had thought nothing could separate them or diminish the bond but then Derek’s infidelity happened and Stiles had stopped playing the naive and clueless husband with a smile.

His father had told him to be more opened and understanding and to listen but as far as Stiles had known there was nothing to talk about or understand or hear. He’d never thought to be with another man after he’d fallen in love was it so much to ask for his partner to feel the same. And even if, as his father had pointed out, there was trouble and distance, what kind of a man thinks to dip his wic first before having a conversation. Derek had ended the marriage long ago, Stiles had told his father, Stiles himself was just brave enough to walk away from something that could never be fixed.

”Damn.” He croaks, the wind is cold and painful as it comes through the windows filling the cab, Stiles feels his eyes dry and then water and lies to himself when he says its just the cold bitter wind. It is bitterness but the cold is of another kind, its lonely and painful and full of regret.

* * *

Its nice to know that even though they aren’t brother’s anymore that Scott had taken to helping Stiles out as much as he could as though they were still family. When Stiles had reached the house he’d found the fridge filled with food and one large Tupperware with a posted note of “eat me” right on the foil.

So thats what Stiles does. He heats up the food and stares blankly at nothing, his eyes focusing on this and that but taking in nothing. If he tries to hard to look at anything then he’ll remember and its hard enough with the house smelling like his father. What will he do with the house? It had belonged his his father and mother and then to his father and Melissa. And now, Stiles supposed, it belonged to him.

Someone knocks but Stiles doesn’t answer, he stares blankly at the oven, sat at the table, feeling himself grow cold and despondent. He’d argued with his father the last time he’d been in this house. Melissa had been on his side when he’d left Derek. She’d been shocked, appalled and angry for him but Stiles father had been oddly calm. He’d had this look on his face, one that was haunted and then Stiles had asked him the one thing that had changed their relationship forever.

”Did. You. Know?”

And he had. He’d seen them when he was on patrol parked where all the young and the stupidly in love sat in their cars necking. His father had told him to end it, if he wanted to continue to be married. He told him to buck up and face his marital problems head on. 

But his father hadn’t thought to tell Stiles.

Melissa had been shocked at the table, she sat there with this look and it was look that made Stiles wonder if that was the turning point in their own marriage. Because if his father could so blasé about his son in law having and affair then what did that mean for them?

Stiles had yelled, had raved and cried called betrayals. He’d never felt so stupid, having not known and then figured it out on his own and sitting there with a shit eating grin pretending that he knew nothing because he wanted to keep Derek and all the while his father had known. And that was the last time he’d ever been inside of his father’s house.

Well, the last time he’d been in his father’s house while his father was alive.

The knocking stops and the oven pings and Stiles eats but tastes nothing. He wonders if the ghost of his father is watching him right now but diminishes the thought all together as it sends a chill up his spine.

”What now,” He asks at nothing and hears no response.


	5. Chapter 5

Aaron Bilson was someone that Stiles is shocked to see in any respectable light because the last time he’d seen Aaron had been during graduation and the boy-now a man- had been stark drunk and naked poolside. But now Aaron, who isn’t built as he once was but still cut an impressive figure, was dressed in a smart suit and was giving Stiles his hand.

”You work here?”

”Inherited the family business,” Aaron says leading Stiles into his office. Its a warm space, well lived in with its deep green sofas and its walls of books. There were toys scattered and book of fairytales tossed half beneath the desk. “After dad died last year it all became mine.”

”I’m sorry to hear about your dad.” Stiles really is. Maggin Bilson had always reminded Stiles of Santa, with his fluffy white beard and kind glimmering blue eyes and rotund belly. He’d been the man that had held Stiles’ father together when his mother died. Stiles supposes that Aaron, like his father will be holding him up through the process. “I...dont know what I’m doing.”

”Its a lot to take.”

”You seem okay.”

”I’m trained and I grew up in a funeral home, Stiles. I know this all like the back of my hand.” He says. “We...if you wanted to see him.”

”No,” Stiles shakes his head almost violently. “No, I can’t do that.”

”Okay.” Aaron says calmly. “Take a seat, you look like you’re about to pass out.”

”I might.” He says. “This is all feeling really new to me right now. I knew that one day this would happen I just never thought I’d be doing this alone.”

Aaron brings him a coffee and a large binder for Stiles to look at, all beautiful and expensive caskets. Stiles wonders why he isn’t seeing them in person and Aaron says its because Stiles looks two seconds away to passing out.

”I thought that for now this would be easier for you.” He uses his pointer finger to point at one of the glossy pages. “This way you can get a general idea of what you’re going to be seeing and what you approve of.”

”Its a box. Why do I need to get used to a box that’s going to be buried anyhow?”

”Because,” Aaron says calmly. Practiced. “Its where your father is going.”

”Oh.” He feels the wind knocked out of him. “Okay, that makes sense.”

”I figured. Take your time.”

The one he picks is blue. Deep sapphire blue, the same color his mother wore for her wedding, the same color that draped the windows in the master bedroom and the same color as his mother’s favorite dress. It seemed fitting that his father was laid to rest in blue, his mother was. 

“This is a good choice.”

”I hope so.”

”Listen, get home and rest,” Aaron soothes his shoulders. “We’ll talk floral arrangements and everything else tomorrow.”

”Thats a good idea.”

”It is. Have a good night.”

The sky is dark blue when he heads home and by the time he’s unlocking the door its pitch black and there is another Tupperware in the fridge waiting for him. This time its his favorite lasagna.

”I’ll thank Scott later.” He says and eats.

* * *

Stiles runs into Jordan Parrish and its so strange to be sat at his fathers desk packing up his things and for Jordan to kindly give a helping hand, his glittering green eyes and soft boyish features untouched by time. Stiles had always sort of adored Jordan, the man was childlike and sweet and even a bit naive but he was straight forward and strong. And of course, of course he remembers before there was Derek there was Stiles crush on Jordan and the half hearted way he’d tried to win the man over only to be let down in the sweetest was humanly possible.

Stiles hadn’t even been that hurt by the rejection, thats how kind Jordan was how sweet, he’d let Stiles get away with one warm kiss and had smiled at him with his eyes.

“Your dad had a lot in here.”

”Well yeah, this was his second home.”

And wasn’t that the truth. When Stiles mother died his father had taken to drinking too much and then once he was off the drink he replaced on addiction for the other and started working long hours. Stiles and his dad had been close and Stiles attributed the closeness due to the fact that they hardly saw one another, there were no toes to step on, not annoying little things that made people who lived eachother rage against. 

In particular, after Stiles had left Derek and after the fight with his father it seemed like John had taken to working long and late hours again. So his office had become home to him for a second time.

”Its nuts though. I’m finding so many little things from elementary school.” Stiles fingers a horrifically twisted little ornament still covered in vibrant green and red glitter. “I made this when I was five.”

”Theres a whole box right here with other stuff like that.” Jordan hefts up and box and sets it onto the sheriffs desk. “Report card and pictures and...you were a little wise man? How cute?” Jordan lifts up the picture and grins down at a cute bearded Stiles with missing teeth. “Is that Scott? No wonder you guys were so close if you’ve known eachother that long.”

”Not really. Scott and I didn’t become tight until our parents started dating in high school.”

”Really?” Jordan places the photo right back in the box. “Would have never guessed. You guys were like conjoined twins, always together.”

”Yeah.” Stiles smiles. “We’re still pretty close its just been a bit busy with everything.”

”With the new baby and...yeah I can understand. By the way, how are you?”

”Well my dad is dead so not great.”

”No, Stiles. I know that I meant how are you? You left five years ago and never came back and your dad was walking around like a ghost. What happened?”

Its probably a good thing that they found a bottle of whiskey in the bottom drawer of his fathers desk and that Jordan was off duty that day. The only way to tell this story was to tell it drunk. It still smelled like fire but it was smooth going down as Stiles started with everything. With the affair and playing dumb, with confronting Derek and then leaving him, of telling his father and his father sympathizing with Derek and then admitting to knowing everything.

Jordan listened and didn’t drink. He interjected when he was supposed to and stayed silent the rest of the time just listening. Maybe Stiles was stupid when he got angry with his father and maybe he should have tried harder to listen and work it out with Derek and make his marriage work but the thought of doing that of trying to imagine a world where Stiles stayed and worked it out, it made him feel sick.

Because to Stiles once someone cheats then its over. If there is the compulsion to run to someone else when things get hard then whats to say that it wont continue to happen. What would have happened when Stiles and Derek decided to have kids and then it just got too hard? Would Derek start working late again, using that excuse to see his mistress where he could pretend he was a single childless man and leave everything to Stiles to pick up? Whenever they would fight if Derek left would he have been with her?

Every time they would make love would Stiles catch the scent of her perfume and wonder who was better in bed?

No, Stiles thinks, it was insane of his father to sympathize with Derek and expect for Stiles to just smile and eat shit. 

“It was wrong of him not to tell you.” Jordan says easily. “And it was wrong of him to expect for you to stay and fight for something that was never going to work.”

”Yeah?”

”Trust me.” Jordan says. “I know the old adage of the husband never leaves their spouses for their mistresses but in some cases it happens and then whats left? A broken lie of a marriage and an expensive divorce.”

”You’re speaking form experience, aren’t you?”

Jordan tells him about Allison and how he’d been so happy with her. She was younger than him when they met, 18 and fresh out of high school and while he tried not to fall head over heels too fast he was unable to stop himself. They were married two years later and it had been good for a while, or so Jordan thought until he’d caught her with someone that she’d called a close family friend.

”We tried to make it work but the spark was gone. I could never trust her and she couldnt stop trying too hard to make it what it was. So I filed for divorce.”

”Was it amicable?”

”Hell no. Divorce turns people into hateful strangers and somehow someway we were fighting for such...stupid things. I left the marriage with a shitty tea service too. I don’t drink tea and I hate it and Allison wound up with a collection of baseball cards she didn’t care for. So what happened later? Eventually we ran into eachother and traded. That was the amicable part, seven years later we ran into eachother in a bookstore and we were able to talk.”

Stiles remembered his divorce, how he hadn’t tried to fight for anything except what he’d brought into the marriage and had rejected everything that Derek had wanted to give him and somehow it feels worse than what Jordan was telling him. It might have been better to fight, for closures sake at least but Stiles had been a coward. He’d walked away and couldn’t face his husband because he didn’t think he’d be able to stay away from him.

”Derek still lives in town.” Jordan says after a few minutes of silently packing. He gives Stiles a sideways look, its soft and apologetic like he hadn’t meant to give Stiles that information at all. 

“The house on Lunar street?”

”Yeah.”

”With his mistress turned wife and all of the little affair babies that they managed to have together?”

”God no.” Jordan makes a surprised laugh. “You weren’t the only ghost left behind after you left. That man hasn’t so much as looked at another woman since the dust settled on your divorce.”

”Sure he has.” Stiles’ tone is clipped, annoyed. “Derek was always a good liar.”

”No he wasn’t.”

”Ah, thats how you know it worked. You can’t fathom Derek being a liar and yet,” Stiles points to his empty left ring finger. “Here we are.”

”Yes.” Jordan shakes his head. “Here we are.”


	6. Chapter 6

Scott blushes from ear to ear because Stiles had near tackled him into a strong hug and thanked him for the food. Honestly it was the least he could do, he’d told Stiles, and of course he was up all night with the baby so he had the time to cook.

”Used to do that for your dad.” He said, bouncing his baby girl in his arms. “Healthy stuff, of course, otherwise my mom would skin me alive.”

”Thats good.”

Baby girl is an armful of adorable coos and she looks at everyone like they're the whole world. Stiles wonders how Scott does it, look at his kid, see her mother and still manage to be happy but its Scott. Scott, who can do nothing but find silver linings in everything.

”You’ve seen Aaron?”

”Last night and then this morning. The funeral is next Sunday so wear your best.”

Scott nods sadly because this will be his second funeral in a year and the funeral of another person important to him. Losing a wife and then a father, well step father but the only one he knew, his own father had died when Scott was in elementary school and Mellisa had taken a long time to recover.

”What flowers did you pick for your dad?”

”His favorites, obviously.”

Theres a playpen in Scott’s old room and they set the baby to bed an hour later. Scott had insisted on staying the night and Stiles couldn’t really fight him on the suggestion. The house had felt cold when Stiles had set foot inside when he’d first gotten there but with Scott it felt somewhat normal. If Mellisa were here then everything would feel right, and Stiles remembers when things had been good between his step mother and his father, the laughter and easy chit chat in the kitchen, Scott puttering around in the front room turning his fathers office into an art studio, if Stiles closed his eyes he would go back in time to those days.

When his mother was still alive it was perfect and then one day it wasn’t and their relationship had grown awkward and cold and when she died the devastation left behind was apparent but the peace was just as heavy. 

Stiles wont kid himself, he used to this his parents had something perfect but then he would remember when things weren’t and how his mother walked around the house in her robe like a woman half alive. Stiles wishes that he’d paid attention to those fights to glean what had really been going on beneath the surface and what was eroding the marriage. It was almost clear what had ended Mellisa and his dad’s relationship and he feels guilty over it but Mellisa was a loyal woman and one of character and Stiles had...begun to understand something awful about his father.

Maybe believing in and sympathizing with Derek meant something more. Could it have been because his father was having an affair? Was that why his parents had begun to fight so often and their perfect marriage broke apart? Was that why his mother had died? Took sad and lonely and drunk behind the wheel, too ashamed and embarrassed because of her husband?

Maybe.

Stiles wondered and wondered and decided to leave the past in the past and focused on the sounds in the house now. Of Scott puttering in that office room like he used to and of the kettle on the stove singing.

”Hey man, hows your mom?”

”She’s good. She wanted to come by,” Scott’s voice grows closer as he walks into the kitchen and towards the stove. He lifts the kettle and sets it down on a cold burner. “But, you know.”

”Your mother runs the show and the doctors would be bereft without her and her nurse army.” Stiles grins form ear to ear. “Hey man, do you think...she’d be pissed if I stayed at her place?”

”She suggested it.” Scott takes out two large mugs. “Mom didn’t think it would be a good idea to leave you here alone what with how you and your dad left things and well, she missed fussing over you.”

”Doesn’t she keep her hands full fussing over you and the baby?”

”Yeah,” Scott says reaching for lose tea and an infuser. “But your her baby too, so.”

”Aw,” Stiles places a hand over his heart. “That is so sweet dude.” 

His eyes feel heavy and his throat constricts a bit like he might cry. Mellisa was the one who sent him off when it was all over. She held his hand when he decided to leave Derek and get a divorce and she’d been the one to get him his job in Seattle. An old friend of hers, she had said, owed her a favor and suddenly Stiles life was beginning again in Seattle in a new job all thank to Mellisa, the only person-other than Scott of course-who understood why he needed to start over.

”My dad is such an idiot. How is it that he couldn’t make it work between him and your mom?”

”I don’t like to pry, Stiles. I never asked.”

Scott spikes their second mug full and both fall asleep giggling like idiots on the sofa. Its nice, being home and drunk with his brother, the baby asleep upstairs cries only a few time in the night and her sounds sober them up enough to make everything stand still. It’s the most peaceful that Stiles has felt since his father died.

Of course the next morning things are hard, Stiles isn’t just having fun with his brother, in the morning light everything goes right back to being terrible. It’s back to packing and taking care of the baby between them and between sadness and his father’s belongings and Annie’s joyous laughter and somehow...somehow Stiles finds something odd.

Or rather its Scott who finds it tucked into the attic.

The glass of the frame is matted with dust, the wood is cracked and chipped along it so Scott turns it over and carefully removes the picture inside.

Its a woman with a bright gap toothed smile, brilliant green eyes and long straight blond hair. She’s in a short white wispy wedding dress. And on the back of the picture is a name.


	7. Chapter 7

Instinctively Derek knows. He knows the moment that Stiles crosses into town lines and he makes himself scarce whenever he thinks he might have seen him-well the back of his head. Derek is holed up in the same old big house that he and Stiles had shared, many years happy, months of unhappiness and loneliness and then by himself when Stiles was gone. The house he’d picked for them had become a tomb, the sconces and the light fixtures that his mother had insisted on that Stiles hadn’t liked mocked him and ever reflective surface showed that shame and reminded Derek of his own cruel stupidity.

He’d been lonely, he’d tried for so long to quell that loneliness with Stiles and try and months of trying and trying and getting nothing led Derek to doing the one unforgivable thing that turned into two and three and then months had passed and he’d been with that girl. He can’t even remember the spritzers name he just remembers the overpowering fragrances that she wore and how her bright brown eyes had reminded him of Stiles eyes and how good it felt to have someone listen to him and touch him like he mattered and it wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t worth it at all because once Stiles knew and had gone Derek had lost interest in himself and couldn’t look at her because she looked like Stiles.

So Derek spent his years in the house he’d chosen for Stiles all by himself, his birthday and Christmas, every single holiday. He couldn’t stomach being with his family for more than an hour because they were trying their best to make it better and had then lost interest in trying to set him up and now treated him with kid gloves pretending that this wasn't what it was.

He tries, he wants to keep away from Stiles because Stiles wouldn’t want to see him, hell, Derek doesn’t even want to see himself but with the death of Stiles father, who’d become a friend in the passed few years alone, Derek knew that it would only be a matter of time before they were in the same place.

So when Sunday comes he gets there late enough to not be noticed immediately but not too late so that he might stop services. Derek is in his best black suit, his hair is pushed back, longer than it had been and curling under his earlobes and his beard it a bit unkempt, but Derek hadn’t felt like cutting his hair and trimming his beard, too sad that the final connection to Stiles was lying dead and ready to be buried in the ground, a finale to end all finale’s to Derek losing the best thing in his entire life.

Stiles is sat upfront, hardly changed at all from what Derek can see, he’s staring blindly at the casket looking so much smaller than he is. Scott is with him and Melissa is on his other side keeping Stiles grounded and Derek is on him that he feels like he can’t breathe. If Derek hadn’t ruined everything he would be there holding Stiles up, they would have been together and maybe...

There is no time for maybe’s, Derek tells himself as he looks at the casket and sets his eyes on John. He looks peaceful in his coffin, the lines in his face softened, the crease between his brow smoothed. Its a sad day but peaceful. John’s been dying a long time and now its time to sleep.

* * *

Stiles sees Derek and looks passed him blankly, now is not the time to panic, Derek knows this and Derek, along with all the others, follow behind him towards their cars to follow the hearse and the limousine to the cemetery and as he climbs into his car he catches Stiles watching him.

Theres a moment when Derek doesn’t breathe before Stiles nods and climbs into the limousine and Derek nods back. 

* * *

“It was nice of you to come.” Scott takes a seat with Derek on the top step of the back porch of the Stilinski house. Its busy inside, a near quiet hush, but it had been too much for Derek when he’d seen Stiles in the midst of his father’s friends and neighbors, knowing that he had no place to be there with him to help. 

He feels selfish, wanting to be with Stiles to help him and knowing that he has no place. Its his fault but today is not the day for selfishness and brooding over his own mistakes, today is about John and death and Stiles in the aftermath of it, caught in another great loss. 

“John was a good man.” Derek says, peeling the label off of his beer in pieces with his thumb nail. “How is he?”

”He’s dealing,” Scott takes a long pull of his beer, clicks his jaw. “He’s Stiles, you know. Compartmentalization is his thing. His dad is dead, so he takes care of the arrangements. The funeral happens. He says goodbye. The house needs to be sold, so he decides to sell it.” 

“Scott,” Derek stresses. “How is he?”

”I don’t know. Fuck,” Scott sighs, leaning forward. “I don’t know. I don’t know how he can just,” He gestures at the back door. “He wakes up and knows his dad is dead and he gets things done. He breaks down and stops halfway and does what he needs to do.”

”Thats how he is. Doesn’t let anyone in or lets them understand.”

”You talking about his dad or what you did.”

”Today is not about me.”

”Its not but you never talk about it. What you did. Not to me anyway.”

At the bottom step there are moist scraps of the beer label that Derek had been peeling. “No. Not to you.”

”To John.” Scott doesn’t even ask. “You guys got pretty tight.”

”Yeah, well, I don’t know why. He should have hated me.”

”He did,” Scott laughs. “Thats why he kept you around. Wanted to make you suffer I mean he doesn’t look a thing like Stiles but he does, you know.”

”Yeah.”

The back door opens and Melissa pokes her head out to ask Scott to come back in, she does her thing, looking through Derek like he doesn’t exist and he pretends that it doesn’t bother him but it does. When he’s alone in the back and the sun is beginning to set, when there is no more label to nervously peel and all the other guests have left its just Derek on the back porch and Stiles all alone in the house.

The distance between them is a living and breathing and cruel thing.


	8. Chapter 8

“You stayed.” Stiles is in the kitchen nursing one of apparently many bottles scattered around the dinner table. Derek shuts the door softly and winces when it squeaks. “Dad always meant to grease that but never got down to do it.” Stiles drinks and Derek steps closer. “So you and my dad.”

”Yeah.”

”You guys,” Stiles waves his hand awkwardly. “All buddy buddy when I was away.”

”I’m sorry, I shouldnt’ have-“

”No. No its fine. Dad was...sympathetic.” Stiles says. “Fuck, I’m gonna hate myself in the morning.”

”Then maybe you should stop.”

”Are you kidding me? You’re telling me to stop?” Stiles cracks up as Derek awkwardly stands behind him until the laughter turns into a broken sob. “Jesus. Derek, what the fuck happened?”

”He died.” Derek eases closer and takes a seat beside Stiles at the table, reaches for his beer and places it on the counter by the sink behind him. “It was fast.”

”I know how it works, Jesus I know. Its just, how can years go by with us not talking and then, bam!” Stiles claps. “Gone. I thought that there would be more time that I could get over it but there wasn’t time.”

”Its all my fault.” Derek knows, he knows that it is because John had told him as much but then, John had blamed himself for sticking up for Derek as he did when it wasn’t his place. 

“How is she?” Stiles says. “I looked her up after I got into town, you know, curious and then surprised that you two weren’t together and then well.”

”Then you know more than me.”

”Maggie Smith,” Stiles says. “Heinous adulterous whore. You know, the girl at the flower shop knows about her, another victim. Maggie slept with her husband too.”

”Jesus, Stiles.”

”I was afraid of driving down your street and seeing like, kids bikes and shit. I thought, Derek probably shacked up with her after I was gone and was finally living his real life, you know. We were so young when we got together and maybe I was the one in the way because you never take a chance but you took one on her.”

”It wasn’t like that.”

”So I hear. So why did you do it? I mean, today is one of the worst days of my life, I have my ex husband in my house and now I get to have the answers that I need. So why?”

”I was lonely.”

”So was I.” Stiles scoffs. 

“I needed you. I tried...” He starts. “We both tried to be there I know that but you were far away and then she happened. I have no excuses.”

”You could have tried to talk to me, you know, make me listen. I mean, I talked to you I told you that I was lonely and wanted to make time but you were just...done.”

Derek feels a pinch of annoyance at that, he was the wrong party he was but there were two sides to this. It wasn’t just Derek that ruined everything. 

“Lets talk about this another time.” Derek starts to sit up but Stiles’s palm hits the table hard, stopping him.

”No. Lets do this now, while I’m still drunk enough to be brave.”

”Brave? Stiles, you wont even look at me!”

”Thats not me being a coward I just don't want to hurt and I hurt when I look you.” Stiles says. “I get nauseous.”

Derek bites his lip and the annoyance and shame grows as Stiles continues.

“But I am still brave, demanding answers, this is my time to shine. I can’t take my car because I’m drunk and I cant jog up the stairs because I’ll fall if I try.”

Derek clears his throat and takes a breath. He has the answer on his tongue, has had it since the moment he’d come home from a heady tryst to Stiles standing at the stares and staring at him with all the hurt in the world in his eyes and even before that moment, when it had all just started spiraling out of control and he’d lost his way.

It’s like pulling off a band-aid, it’s supposed to be quick and painless, this truth should set them both free. What could it hurt, to be honest about everything now?

So, he speaks.

”I spent months trying to talk to you.” Derek begins, staring at the side of Stiles head, watching his reactions. “I wanted, so much to make it work, to be able to see you a bit more. I understood your caseload, I mean, fuck-“ He breathes out a little desperately. “You were an intern, you were just starting something so good and you loved it so much but I needed...I needed...I needed you.

”-and do you remember what you would say? Next time, I’ll make time Dee, I swear and then you never did. Dinners going cold, falling asleep on that damn leather chair in the office.” He clears his throat. “Holding...flowers feeling them wilt in my hands standing in a freezing hospital lobby as Melissa came in to tell me, yet again that it was another surgery or another another patient and I was so tired. I was so...so damn alone. In a big old house I had myself only to contend with and for the first time since we met I didn’t have a trace of you.

”The pillows and the sheets didn’t smell like you anymore, the food in the fridge, there was none of your favorites and then one day you just didn’t call and I was angry. Sitting at the table with this dinner all laid out on your birthday and you just forgot.”

The silence is thick.

”And you were lonely.”

”Yeah,” He says. “Yeah. I was lonely and then she happened and I thought, this is terrible I can’t do this and I tried so much harder to get you to see me and you didn’t and by the time you noticed I was gone by the time you were lonely it had been months and I was angry at you and I didn’t feel guilty anymore.”

Derek gets up and dumps the bottle into the sink, he can’t look at Stiles he wont. Its a miserable thing to talk about the why’s and how’s and placing blame. Derek should have tried harder and if that hadn’t worked he should have left and Stiles should have tried to see him instead of purposefully being blind because he thought that no matter what Derek would always be there because thats how it had always been.

”I need to leave.” Derek says after a heart breaking moment and Stiles finally looks at him and nods. “I’m sorry for your dad, for your loss.”

Before he’s out the front door he hears Stiles say;

”I’m sorry for yours.”

And then the door clicks shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The right person at the wrong time. You can love someone completely and it might not be enough. When you’re young you don’t think, not the way that you should. And the thing is that sometimes everyone is to blame.  
> Theres more to come I just figured that I’d say something here. This was rather heavy but Derek needed to come in and I always assumed he’d blast his way into this story but no, Derek, as he has always been, melds out of the shadows.  
> Let me know what you think and well I hope that your opinions aren’t so angry.


	9. Chapter 9

It feels like saying goodbye that night, the kind of goodbye they’d never had the chance to say but, of course, Stiles tells himself that they said goodbye a long time ago. Its only hearing Derek’s side of things that makes it feel that much more final though a part of him, the same part of him that saw Derek for the very first time, gangly limbs and all, hopes not.

Stiles falls asleep at the table surrounded by empty beer bottles and dreams of the nights he’d often found his father asleep in a similar position just after his mother died. It had been terrible, those times and now as an adult he can register the guilt in his father drowning along with the sadness of losing her. It had been guilt. Stiles can recognize it because it was the same guilt that Derek carried, of loving and being and losing far too soon.

When he wakes, Stiles decides to think of something else, something that makes it hurt less and of course that’s when he remembers the picture of the woman.

* * *

The picture sits in his father’s office, the beautiful woman with the gap toothed smile and flowing wedding dress, and it rankles Stiles because he cannot place her. He looks through his family albums and doesn’t see her in them at all, he can’t see her features in him or in the pictures of his cousins and aunts and uncles, he doesn’t see her in his mother or father. She is a perfect stranger smiling up at him through old fading glossy paper. Daisy. Who is Daisy and why had his father hidden this picture?

Because the writing on the back on the picture is his fathers slanted half cursive and he wonders who this woman could possibly have been to him for the picture to be hidden away in the attic like some dirt secret. He thinks back and remembers his fathers words during that argument about Derek and he remembers the look on his father’s face when was defending him and he wonders and wondering leads him to breaking apart his fathers office searching for something.

He doesn’t know why he cares about the woman at all, he’d just had his heart torn out of his chest by Derek and their conversation the night before and he’d just buried his father and it was all too much but Stiles was curious and this felt important.

Was this woman the reason why his mother had been so depressed before she died? Had Stiles father had an affair with this Daisy woman and had his mother found out about her and just...

He finds nothing at all in the office or in his fathers bedroom, the house is a wrecks, the books all pulled from the shelves because, in a moment of madness, he’s imagined that maybe he’d find something hidden between the pages of his father’s books. 

“Where are you?” He asks the ghost of Daisy and trudges into the kitchen, knocking the box of his fathers belongings, ones he’d brought back with him from the funeral home, that had been left on the counter by the fridge. He stares at the box and, thinking nothing of it, he decides to check his fathers things. 

“Theres not going to be anything here...” He checks his pockets and understandably finds nothing there and wonders if he’ll ever unlock the mystery of Daisy when he checks his dads wallet and finds a unopened letter, the creases folded and worn, the envelope yellowed with age. 

Its addressed to Daisy.

* * *

Scott tells Stiles that its a bad idea and maybe it is but Stiles has already made the decision to find this woman. He can’t stop thinking about her place in his father’s life and the meaning of his mother’s death and the connection that they had to each other.

Who was this woman? Stiles can hazard a guess and the guess reminds him of Derek and all of the things Derek never got to say back then only to tell him far too late to fix anything.

Was this woman the reason why everything in his happy house had changed? It certainly seemed so otherwise the picture wouldn’t have been hidden.

This Daisy lives a few towns over, the drive is exhausting and anxiety ridden and Stiles can’t help but wonder if maybe he should let sleeping dogs lie. His father is dead, his father who had hidden the picture of this woman and who had never sent her this letter. Stiles had been too afraid to open it, too afraid to clearly see it. He wondered if this woman would be honest and tell him and then maybe Stiles could find peace in just this. Why did he need it? It had nothing to do with him or with Derek or what may have been both their faults. 

He drives all night and all day, he ignores the calls that he receives, the town he drives into is not too dissimilar to his own though the green is much more vibrant and the light shines just a bit more, as though it is safe from whatever heavy veil blankets Beacon Hills many miles away. Pikes Reeding welcomes him with waving pedestrians of all ages who watch his car go by with a small amount of curiosity, this place is unused to new people, he determines but he smiles back as kindly as he can. The roundabout in the town square is quaint and he can determine from a glance that the town is incredibly small. 

This is the kind of place his parents would have been happier in, he thinks, smaller and bright and vivid green.

Finding the house takes some time but a few kind people send him on his way with the right directions, curious but kind, they don't ask too many questions and he’s glad for it. He wonders about his dad and wonders just how often he’d made the trips here to see Daisy.

”Thats on old Myers Road.” A terribly old man with shining bald pink dome, answers, he strokes his impressively long beard. “Yeah, right along that way,” He points, “Go straight for three miles and then make a right onto the unsaved road straight down. It’ll take you right into a neighborhood and there you’ll find the house.” He says.

”Really?” Stiles says a little curious.

”All the neighborhoods are like that, you see. When the town was built up it was only a few families and they all wanted their privacy.”

”Rich folks?”

”You betcha! But now all those big houses were torn down and now its all small houses.”

”Like burrows above ground?”

”I guess.”

And Stiles is on his way, three miles down an unmarked unpaved road and then to the right, trees overhang and suddenly break to concrete and a decently sized cul de sac, lined around with small quaint cottages. 

“This place really is out of a story book.” He says to himself as he finds the correct house. Its a bright yellow house with a wide white porch and fluted beams. As he parks in the driveway, next to an old yellow Beetle he grips the old faded envelope in his hands and skips up the po he steps towards the slightly rounded door, admiring the half moon stained glass.

Three knocks he gives the door and, as it opens, he determines that he’s an idiot with noting good to say and is struck dumb by the woman who answers the door.

”Can I help you?”

”Yeah,” He says and awkwardly holds out the letter. “My...he uh...this is for Daisy.”

”Daisy?” The woman asks, she leans against the partially opened door, her gray blue eyes narrowing. “How do you know my mother?”

End; Chapter One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 coming soon and much heavier. You will be thrown through quite a few loops. You will feel betrayed and you will be angry. It will be sad and infuriating. Just a heads up. And thank you to those of you who have left kudos and have commented on this story, to those of you who sort of understood the deeper meanings. Nothing is black and white, people do terrible things out of anger and jealousy and loneliness. Its no excuse, its stupidity and being small minded and selfish.  
> Hope to hear from you all and I hope to not disappoint.


	10. Chapter 2 Daisy

The woman is maybe five years older than Stiles with thick golden brown curls that flow down her back, a round soft face and deep brown eyes that remind him of Scott. Her skin is lightly tanned and she has a smattering of freckles across her nose and forehead and she has Daisy’s gap tooth, though she doesn’t grin. She invites him into her small house, he does a cursory look, small and neutral colored furniture, old obviously hand me downs. 

She offers him coffee or tea and he gladly takes a cup of coffee, listens to her puttering around the kitchen and wonders just what the hell he was doing here. If this Daisy woman, her mother, had an affair with his father then what would be the point brining it up now? John was dead as a door nail and there was no reason resurrecting old ghosts, its not like he needed the answers to give to his mother, she’d been dead longer than Stiles had been alive.

Maybe it was the issue with Derek, who had finally told Stiles his half of the story and maybe Stiles felt that he needed this closure for his mother. If his father had run around on his mother, which it seemed very likely, then maybe knowing for sure and understanding his side of the story will grant them both peace. 

After all, John had sympathized with Derek in a way that spoke volumes and maybe his happy childhood before it went wrong hadn’t been as happy to begin with, maybe there were issues with his parents too. Not like it gave his father the excuse to ruin what was a happy relationship that must have fallen on hard times. No relationship is perfect.

The woman comes back in and sets a mug full of steaming coffee in front of him, black, and takes a seat at the opposite loveseat, watching him and waiting for him to settle.

”So,” She starts. “How do you know my mother?”

”Well I don’t,’ He starts. “My father did. And I hadn’t known anything about her till I found this,” He plucks the work picture from his shirt pocket and hands it to the woman And takes it and stares at the glossy image hard and unreading. She places it on the coffee table like an afterthought and crosses her legs. “And then I found the letter.“

”And you didn’t think to read it?”

”No. It didn’t seem right. Seems like he kept it for a very long time and well, I thought that maybe it was important enough to deliver.”

”Personally.” She takes out a metal case from the table beside the loveseat for a cigarette. “You don’t mind.”

”I should but no. Just,” He side grins. “those things will kill you. I should know, I’m a doctor.”

”Your dad pay for your education?”

”Well, most of it. Saved a lot of money and inherited a lot from my grandparents so he mostly put me through school.” Stiles says with some pride. “Lucky I guess.”

”Must be nice.” She says distantly and lights her cigarette. She leans back and stares up at the ceiling. “My mother got sick when I was in middle school so I took care of her. We couldn’t afford much so I always knew that college wasn’t an option. Insurance covers only so much. Can you believe, a caretaker three days a week for an hour a day? How could we manage that?”

”Its a shitty system. I wont lie.” He says and does sympathize with that. Stiles worked as a doctor and tried his best to heal the sick and broken but there was only so much he could do to really help. He couldn’t imagine what this woman had been through. “I’m Stiles by the way. Stiles Stilinski.”

”Marchant.” She leans forward to shake his hand after taken a sudden moment of stark shock. “Stilinski, huh?”

”You know that name.”

”I should.” She says. “Tell me, how is John? He still married?”

Stiles doesn’t like the way she says it, like some sort of joke that she doesn’t find funny or like an insult. So he was right, his father had an affair with her mother and must have broken it off when Daisy got sick. In a way it makes him angrier, that his dad had a relationship with another woman at all is terrible but worse, leaving when the going got tough. Its a strange way to feel. 

“My mother died when I was seven.”

”I’m sorry to hear that.” She says like she couldn’t care less and it makes him antsy. 

“My dad died a week ago. The funeral was the day before yesterday.”

Now that has her on edge. Marchant sits up straight a bit in shock and a strange sort of look passes through her before she schools her features again. She cracks her knuckles and leans back again.

”Whats the point of you coming here then? If he didn’t want you to deliver it? If your mother didn’t want to rub my face in it? What does it matter?”

”I don’t know.” He says. “I found the picture and then the letter and just had to come here.”

”You’re compulsive just like him.”

”I guess so.”

”You have no clue.”

”I do not.”

Ten minutes of silence, of Stiles drinking his coffee and Marchant smoking passes by like an eternity and then she extinguishes the butt of her cigarette against the metal case and looks him dead in the eye.

”Life is weird.” She starts. “You know my parents were happy, at least what I remember of them. Always laughing and smiling and then one day dad leaves because of some college idiot who poked a hole in a condom because she wanted him.”

”Jesus. What a bitch.” He says. “Why do people cheat? I mean, why not leave? Whats the point in starting a family and then just running around with someone else? And whats the point in being hurt and left behind only to do the exact same thing?”

”You’re talking about my mother in this scenario. The jilted woman who turned around and had an affair with a married man in kind just because she could and wanted to spread the hurt.”

”Who else would I be talking about?”

Marchant nods and hums in consideration but there is something so sad in it. Its a terrible thing to do to another person especially when you’ve been hurt the same way. Stiles thinks about his mother and how hurt she’d been and how dead like she’d walked around the house right before she died. He knows now, that his father had an affair with this Daisy and wrecked his mother. He knows that his father ended things either when Daisy got sick or because his mother found out the truth.

It makes him angry at this Daisy and hateful, it makes him angry all over again at his father and at Derek and that stupid no name spritzer girl who thought that she could wreck and had happily wrecked his already fractured marriage and he’s angry at himself for not trying harder with Derek and sticking around. He’s angry at himself for not hearing Derek and wonders if his father had likewise called out for attention to his mother who ignored him and seemed blinding by his depression and then his infidelity until it all came crashing down around her.

Theres so much to consider. Stiles’ father is dead, Stiles is sitting in the living room in his father’s ex mistresses house having a cup of coffee with her jilted and angry daughter who seems to hate his father and him by proxy and he realizes that he’s just insulted her mother.

And he doesn’t care. This woman was hurt and knew what that hurt felt like but still went out of her way to have an affair and hurt his mother...and then his mother died. Had it not been for the affair his mother wouldn’t have started drinking and had she not started drinking then maybe she wouldn’t have been on that slick road, she certainly wouldn’t have been drunk and she wouldn’t have driven off the road in that that ditch and she wouldn’t have died.

”The one you called a bitch? Is your mother.” Marchant looks Stiles dead in the eye, her eyes so dark and angry and he feels the walls closing in.

Stiles hears Scott’s voice telling him that this wasn’t a good idea and honestly, Stiles should have listened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWIST! How’d you like the twist? For those of you who called Stiles having a sister, you were right. But you were wrong about Derek having an affair with the sister. That didn’t happen. So theres more to come. Sorry I haven’t updated I’ve been going through a lot on my end but I’ll try my best to be more consistent. Give me your thoughts, dudes.


	11. Chapter 11

Marchant Stilinski. Thats who Stiles is talking to, the older sister he never knew that he had. He wonders if Mellisa knew anything about this, he wonders if his father ever told. Marchant seems like a cat that caught the canary, watching Stiles life fall apart around him once the secret it out. He’d known that his mother was a lot younger than his dad, that had been no secret, but he hadn’t known that his father was married before they met. Well married during. Married to Daisy with a daughter and a nice little cottage in some time little town. 

He remembers his mother telling him the story of how she met his dad, having driven into town and bumping into this older man with sawdust in his hair and heavy work boots, that hadn’t made a whole lot of sense because as far back as Stiles can remember he’d never seen his dad do any type of handy work.

Apparently he’d been a carpenter before he ditched his family for his nineteen year old mother, who knew. Well, Marchant knew.

Stiles just doesn’t know anything at all. His father had always been a cop, he always lived in their two story house in Beacon Hills, he always watching college football and gave sage advice and drank a little too much and had an issue with his cholesterol and heart. He was a good dad to Stiles growing up, he paid for a majority of Stiles school and went to each graduation and had gotten a little weepy when he’d helped Stiles move into his first dorm and had taken too many pictures, he had helped Stiles move into his first apartment and had been overjoyed at Stiles wedding.

But that wasn’t really John Stilinski, Stiles got the new version, the 2.0 Version of John Stilinski who had apparently bought this house with his pregnant first wife, who’d carved the furniture himself and even Marchant’s crib. He taught Marchant to walk in this house and had tied ribbons in her curly hair, he’d been a carpenter and the shed outback had been his workhouse and still had his old tools and half made odds and ends. Daisy hadn’t the heart to go inside after he’d left her and Marchant hadn’t the heart to tear it all down. He’d married Daisy on a spring morning in that same backyard, Marchant had already been born the but too young to remember and he’d seemingly been happy until he wasn't. She doesn’t remember when he’d started to pull away but she does remember the fights, the shouting, he’d been out too late, he smelled like perfume and her mother saying that of course she knew.

“When your mother told him that she was pregnant I think he knew that he would leave.” Marchant said taking out the hard liquor. She pours a generous amount for Stiles and pushes the glass towards him. “I asked her and she told me everything and my mother wasn’t ever the type of person to lie. Things here were tough. The business wasn’t doing well, the town was too small and he wanted to leave it. I think that my mother was stubborn and wanted to stay and she figured it out. You can’t have an affair in this town and have it be a secret. Everyone knew.”

”Jesus.”

”So when your mom told him that she was pregnant he didn’t know what to do. My mom told him to choose. He could stay and fight for us and provide child support for you or he could leave.” She pours herself a glass and gulps it down. Pours another. “And he left. You mom showed up here demanding an answer, I do remember that.”

”She wouldn’t-my mother wasn’t like that.” He defends his mother, the mother that he remembers. “She couldn’t have known.”

”She knew. Otherwise she wouldn’t have gotten knocked up on purpose to trap him.”

His mother had shown up at the house, his father hadn’t any idea of what to do about his girlfriend and his wife in the house yelling at eachother and then at him and then Daisy had told him to choose. He’d chosen then easiest path which was Claudia, who was young and starry eyed and hysterical and terrified because she had no one in the world and now she was pregnant and what was she supposed to do on her own with a baby.

”Didn’t he try to be in your life?”

”In the beginning.” Marchant lights another cigarette. “He’d call on my birthday and send presents and sometimes he would drive by just to say hello but the she was always there, refused to get out of the car and had you in the back, didn’t want you anywhere...listen. I don’t know what she was thinking or how she felt. I’m sure that as a stupid teenager that she thought she’d won and then, suddenly she’s marrying this recently divorced man, she’s pregnant and he’s still trying to stick close to his family. It’s no excuse but she was stupid. You mother was so stupid.”

”And then he just stopped?”

”He had to choose and he chose your mom.” Marchant says. “I did talk to him a few years later. I think I was twelve and I found his number. Mom had just started getting sick and I was so scared and he started coming around again.” 

Twelve. Stiles would have been seven at the time. Seven when his mother started fighting with his dad, when she started drinking and walking around the hoses like a ghost. 

John was trying to do right by the family he’d abandoned and Stiles mother hadn’t liked that, she hadn’t liked that at all and started fighting with him and then she died.

He tells Marchant that much and Marchant just shrugs.

”Mom would have never taken him back. When he came around she would look at him like she was trying to kill him with her mind. We were struggling so much and he hadn’t done a damn thing for us and suddenly, here he is again trying to help and then, again, he just vanished. I couldn’t even get him on the phone. That was the last time.”

”My mom died. That had to have been why.”

The drive home is slow, Stiles is tipsy enough to understand that he has to be extra carful and he hadn’t the balls to ask Marchant if he could use her sofa. When she’d finished her story he’d been told to leave. The never come back had been unsaid but nonetheless heard loud and clear and despite being tipsy she’d sent him on his way. The letter and picture left with her to do whatever she pleased. When he’d asked about her mother she’d told him point blank; “She died last year.” And slammed the door in his face.

There was more to the story, so much more but he didn’t think he needed to know any more, not at the moment. Everything was heavy, his father, his mother and their victims. Stiles doesn’t know why his father had an affair, he doesn’t know why he chose Stiles mother over his family but he had. Marchant had said so hauntingly that she remembered the day he left.

”Your mother climbed into his truck with him and I stared out the front window just watching him drive away. I thought that he’d be back.”


	12. Chapter 12

Selling the house isn’t going to be much of a hardship for Stiles, not after meeting Marchant and knowing the truth. 

From her perspective, Scott had said to him over the phone after having been shocked silent for two minutes. Stiles hadn’t been able to hold it all in and so had called Scott while he was drunkenly driving home and had told him the entire story. Scott had been shocked but he didn’t disbelieve it.

’I mean, he never talked about his life before meeting your mom.’ 

Which was true. John had never talked about before meeting Stiles mom, he never talked about the place he’d grown up in or about old friends. Stiles knew his grandfather but the man had a stroke when Stiles was five and didn’t like to speak much and then three years after that he’d been diagnosed with dementia and now no longer registered or recognized anything or anyone around him.

Stiles wanted to be angry but, as Scott said, the story was told to him through Marchant who had been told by her mother, a woman who had been betrayed by her husband, abandoned by him and bitter. Stiles knows what thats like and he can’t even hold it against her.

’I can’t imagine doing that,’ Scott had said and of course he couldn’t imagine doing what John did. Scott would have never left his wife and child for someone else, pregnancy be damned, of course, Scott would have never had an affair to begin with so maybe the argument was moot.

John had payed for college, he’d held Stiles hand through life and had been wonderfully present for the entirety. There was never a moment, growing up, where he doubted his fathers support and even in those years where they were strained after Stiles’ divorce, Stiles still knew in his heart that if he needed his father that the man would drop everything to be there for him.

Its hard to equate, hard to compare the man that both he and Marchant knew as dad. Stiles’ dad would never have an affair. Stiles dad would never walk out on his family and start over again in some other town like a completely different person and he would never cut off complete contact and leave a child to suffer.

But _Marchant’s_ dad had done exactly that. He’d come back for a moment, sure, but more like a tease at normality. John had come back to help but had made everything worse by vanishing again during Daisy and Marchant’s hard times and whats worse is that, from what Stiles hears, it was his mother that was the great instigator in all of this. Had his mother made more demands? Had she demanded that John cut out Marchant totally and completely for a second time _or else?_ Had she temper tantrumed, not gotten her way and drink to much on the road?

Could Stiles mother be so petty?

The answer seemed to point to yes. Nineteen year old Claudia Kerkovich stole a man away from his family and then years later when that man wanted to do right by his daughter had taken stolen him away again. That meant that Stiles father was that weak. Weak enough to break his own vows and weak enough to walk away from his family. So pathetically weak that he cut off his daughter for a second time when she needed him most when his wife, the wife he decided to stay with, demanded his attention.

Because this isn’t just on his mother this is on his father and whatever part that Daisy had to play, it was her fault too.

Right?

That might not be fair, because if this was Daisy’s fault then it mean that in the Derek situation that it wasn’t just on Derek but that this was on Stiles too. Derek’s affair with the spritzer girl; Derek was weak and slept with someone else.

But Stiles was cruel by ignoring Derek because later would always come. We’ll talk later when I get home, love you bye. Stiles had said that so many times that the words lacked meaning by the time he realized that Derek had emotionally cut himself off. In Stiles defense, his internship was hard the hours were insane and he was trying to hard to reach excellence. Derek should have understood that.

But.

But.

Derek had tried. Now that Stiles know Derek’s half, he had tried he’d been left alone in that big house, promises broken every single time and he’d gotten understandably lonely.

There was no excuse for the affair but Stiles understood a little better that Derek wasn’t the only one to blame because Stiles, if he honestly thought about it, forgot about Derek. He forgot Derek’s birthday was on Christmas and had taken a longer shift because “Derek will understand,” only to be reminded by a very annoyed Cora that Derek was pouting on his birthday. 

Stiles forgot Valentine’s Day and had come home to a cold dinner still left on the dining room table the next morning and an empty bed. 

He’d forgotten their anniversary, he’d forgotten his own birthday and he’d completely ditched Derek in the middle of one of their date nights when he’d gotten a call from a fellow resident about a once in a life time surgery you have to see this.

And then Derek stopped begging Stiles for some time, he stopped leaving him leftovers in the fridge and stopped doing Stiles laundry, he’d taken to depressingly sit in the office staring out the window deep in thought and when Stiles, finally, took notice of the great divide between them Derek would roll his eyes and say “go to work, Stiles,” which sounded suspiciously like “go away, Stiles.”

“I drove you away.” 

Derek stares at Stiles through tired eyes, his glasses are smudged from having pushed them onto his face and trying to pull up his sweat pants because someone, now identified as Stiles, had banged and banged on his front door like a maniac causing Derek to roll out of bed and try to make himself presentable before running down the stairs.

”What?”

”I drove you away.” Stiles pushes himself into the house, looking harried and mad all at once.

He smells like a brewery, Derek thinks as he shuts and locks his door.

”Are you drunk?”

”What? No. I don’t think so. Not since last night.”

”Okay?” Derek crosses his arms and leans against the front door. He never imagined that Stiles would ever come willingly back into this house and he never imagined that he’d say that. “Now, what are you doing here at ass in the morning waking up the neighbors?”

”Like the care.” Stiles shoves his hands into his pockets embarrassed. “Something weird happened last night.”

”Okay.”

”And I found up some terrible things about my dad.”

Derek nods at Stiles to continue.

”And now him sort of taking your side makes sense and I don’t know what do do about that.” Stiles pulls his hands out of his pockets and wrings his hands. “What you did is unforgivable, okay, I am not saying your off the hook on that. It was a shitty and hurtful thing to do to a person. You should have just left me, that would have hurt less.”

Derek deflates and feels angry and sad again. He nods, doesn’t speak because if he does he might just point out that Stiles was a forgetful emotionally ignorant ass who would take extra shifts over spending his limited time with his husband. But that was old news, water under the bridge. Neither of them were prizes in this.

”Stiles why are you here?”

”My dad had an affair with my mother and left his family for her.“

”What?” Derek pushes off the door, brows furrows and shocked. “Are you serious?”

Stiles nods.

”He moved here to start over and he never lifted a finger to help them and the one time he tried my mom just...she...Jesus this is so sick.”

Derek pulls Stiles into the kitchen and sits him at the counter. He hadn’t changed anything there, the appliances and the dishes were all the same, and he watched as Stiles shrank in his stool. 

Derek passed him a clear mug of black coffee and watched Stiles take small sips.

”I don’t think my mom let him be in his kids life.”

”What makes you think that?”

Stiles mentions the fighting, he mentions his mother walking around the house like a ghost when his father would take his “fishing trips” which were now a so very obvious coverup given to Stiles when he would leave the house for a few house every weekend. His mother’s anger, her drinking and depression. 

“She’s even hid his shoes so he couldn’t leave.”

”What the hell.”

”I mean, I get it.” Stiles took a long burning sip. “She wanted to keep him home.”

He remembers his mother running after the car in her robe, he remembers her making these elaborate dinners and waiting for his dad with Stiles sat right there unable to touch the food. He remembers the incident with the shoes and Stiles dad sending him to his bedroom when his mom had come running at them screaming down the hall.

”They were so dysfunctional.” Stiles says. “They were terrible or each other.”

”But they loved each other. John never got over losing her he talked about her all the time.”

Thinking about his parents makes Stiles shudder at what could have been. Would Stiles have turned into his mother if he’d stayed with Derek?

His father hadn’t even been cheating on his mother, John had been trying to bridge the gap with his daughter, was trying to build a relationship with Marchant.

”I know what you’re think.”Derek takes the mug to refill it. “Stop. You’re nothing like that.”

”I drove you away.” Stiles says hollowly. “I was absent.”

”I slept with someone else.” Derek says stiffly. “I didn’t try harder to get you to notice me. We’re both to blame.”


	13. Chapter 13

Marchant was a kid who got a shitty lot in life. Her dad was shitty, her mom got sick and that was shitty. There wasn’t enough cash to go around and she was smart enough to realize early that she wouldn’t be leaving town and that she wouldn’t be going to college. 

Did that bother her? Well, of course it did.

Stiles wonders what life was like before his father left, when the going was good and they were happy. He almost regrets giving Marchant the picture of her mother but then, he thinks about the unhappy and very dead woman in the photograph on a day that proved to be a lie and he feels better to be parted with it.

His father had done terrible things and his mother had done terrible things and look what happened then. His mother didn’t get sick, she didn’t take a nasty fall on the stairs, she didn’t slip in the bath or pass in her sleep. She’d been fighting with his dad for months, she’d started drinking and drifting and she’d taken her keys and had decided to go somewhere, he’s not sure what she was up to that night, it had been raining the car skid and crashed and she’d died.

He doesn’t hate his parents though, he might want to but he remembered the the going was good in his house, when his mom and dad were embarrassingly in love with each other and we’re ridiculously happy before he tried to be in his sisters life and Stiles mother was unable to handle that at all.

Does that make his mother an evil person? Maybe. But she had been so young when she met his dad and had Stiles and even at twenty six she was a bit immature, especially in comparison to a much older husband.

”I hate my life.” He glares at his computer screen at Ginny, who shakes her head. He can hear the kids playing with Harry in the other room and Stiles wishes that he was back home in Seattle, exhausted from a long shift, feeling victories or devastated from a long surgery. “Why did I come here?”

”Your father died.”

”Why did I go out of my way to find out about the woman in the picture?”

”Because you can never leave well enough alone.”

Ginny was right. Stiles had never ever found anything curious that he wasn’t willing to poke a stick at. That’s how most of his messes came about and most of his successes too. She pulls her red hair into a bun and gives him a screwed look.

”Your father was a shit man.” She says. “Your mother was a shit woman.” 

He lets anger bubble up and die down in his throat. She isn’t exactly wrong and Ginny is far enough removed from the situation that she can be completely honest with him without trying to coddle the way Scott and Derek did. They knew his parents they tried to soothe his pains and make it lighter. Ginny didn’t know John or Claudia, she didn’t know Marchant or Daisy. She didn’t know the before but she was a clear headed and intelligent woman and she never held back.

Thats why they were such good friends, despite how much Harry expressed how it should be impossible.

”We don’t know if this ex-wife of his was a shit wife but we do know that his daughter was innocent in all of this. You’re hurting and that’s understandable, especially with what happened with the ex and how much this parallels that but Stiles,” Ginny shakes her head. “You are not the victim. She is.”

”I’m making this all about me?”

”And thats fine, just, don’t go back trying to make it right. Its not your job, you’re not your father or your mother. They’re the only ones who can make it right and they’re dead.”

Ginny lets him cry a little, lets him get drunk. Harry pops in and says that the kids are ready for a nap and takes over for Ginny. He changes the subject and talks about the kids and Stiles appreciates that. Harry knows because Ginny tells him everything and Stiles knows that he has opinions but he wont share them for anything in this world. He’s a cool salve and Ginny is a fiery balm, they clash and match and Stiles is grateful for them.

* * *

The one thing that Harry does and has done for as long as Stiles has known him, is try to get him to get back out there. 

“Aren’t there any good looking men in that town you weren’t married to?”

”Well,” Stiles starts. “Theres one.”

”Call him.”

Stiles is drunk, Harry is an enabler and has great ideas.

“Sure.”

And so when Jordan picks up the phone Harry gives Stiles a thumbs up on the screen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I remembered Ginny and Harry back in Seattle and how much fun I had making them friends so I through them back. Fiery balm and cooling salve? I don’t know it just fit. Ginny says it like it is and gives no shits and Harry is there to make everything peaceful. But he’s also very keen on getting Stiles out there and laid because Stiles needs to move on. So. Thank Harry for what happens next. ⚡️


End file.
